How the $5 vehicle registration fee is being put to use in Berks County

A number of infrastructure improvement projects in Berks County are moving forward, thanks to the extra funds generated by the $5 fee that was tacked onto vehicle registrations in the county about two years ago.

Officials said that the money that has come back to the county since the fee was enacted is being used to replace three county-owned bridges that had been neglected for decades as the county struggled to stretch its transportation dollars to keep up with all the needed repairs.

County Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt, who advocated for passage of the registration fee, said the extra funds have given county officials the opportunity to address an issue that has been long overdue.

“This has worked out extremely well for the county because now we have a plan in place to rehabilitate, replace and remove our bridges over the next 12 years,” he said. “No one likes to pay more fees, but I think this one is different because it's targeted to a specific need.”

The plan, he said, is to use the fee to pay for repairs to the 59 county-owned spans. Those bridges make up just a portion of the total bridges in the county. Many others are owned by PennDOT or municipal governments.

The first three bridges scheduled to be replaced are Glendale Bridge in Douglass Township, at a cost of about $2.36 million; Ebling Memorial Bridge in Muhlenberg Township, at a cost of about $1.65 million; and Pinnacle View Bridge in Albany Township, at a cost of about $800,000.

“These projects are still in the design phase,” said county Transportation Planner Alan Piper. “But these projects are underway, and they wouldn't be if it weren't for the fee.”

Piper said these three projects will be financed completely by the fee or because the county chose to enact the fee. He explained that by enacting the fee the county became eligible to apply for matching grants through a state program, known as Road Maintenance and Preservation, or Road MaP, designed to fund additional road and bridge repairs over a 10-year period.

The county will use the $2 million it received as part of that program to cover most of the cost of replacing the Glendale Bridge.

“By enacting the $5 fee, we got two bites of the apple, so to speak,” Barnhardt said.

When county officials pitched the registration fee proposal to residents in the fall of 2016, they said they expected the fee to generate $1.3 million to $1.9 million a year to repair the county-owned bridges. That assessment appears to have been right on track.

The county has received $3.12 million in funds generated by the fee from its inception in March 2017 through December 2018. All funds collected by PennDOT are deposited into a special fund, then distributed twice each year to each participating county based on the amount collected from its residents.

The fee was made possible by a measure in the 2013 state transportation funding overhaul. It allows counties to add an extra $5 onto the annual $37 vehicle registration fee to fund local projects. Those who choose to renew their registration for two years rather than one pay an extra $10.

Neighboring Chester, Montgomery and Schuylkill counties are among the nearly 25 of the 67 counties in the state that have enacted the fee since 2015.

Barnhardt said there's a possibility the county will rescind the fee in 12 years when the county expects to have caught up with bridge repairs. Or, he said, leaders could decide to keep the fee in place and dole those funds out to municipalities as they continue to address their own infrastructure improvements.

How the registration fee is being spent

The following Berks County bridge projects will be funded using money collected under the $5 registration fee:

Glendale Bridge in Douglass Township

On Winding Road over Ironstone Creek.

Complete bridge replacement.

Estimated cost: $2.36 million ($360,000 from $5 fee and $2 million for Road MaP funds).